Inside One School's Extraordinary Security Measures

While schools across America reassess their security measures in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one school outside of Chicago takes safety to a whole new level.

The security measures at Middleton Elementary School start the moment you set foot on campus, with a camera-equipped doorbell. When you ring the doorbell, school employees inside are immediately able to see you, both through a window and on a security camera.

“They can assess your demeanor,” Kate Donegan, the superintendent of Skokie School District 73 ½, said in an interview with ABC News.

Once the employees let you through the first set of doors, you are only able to go as far as a vestibule. There you hand over your ID so the school can run a quick background check using a visitor management system devised by Raptor Technologies. According to the company’s CEO, Jim Vesterman, only 8,000 schools in the country are using that system, while more than 100,000 continue to use the old-fashioned pen-and-paper system, which do not do as much to drive away unwanted intruders.

“Each element that you add is a deterrent,” Vesterman said.

In the wake of the Newtown shooting, Vesterman told ABC News his company has been “flooded” with calls to put in place the new system. Back at Middleton, if you pass the background check, you are given a new photo ID — attached to a bright orange lanyard — to wear the entire time you are inside the school. Even parents who come to the school on a daily basis still have to wear the lanyard.

“The rules apply to everyone,” Donegan said.

The security measures don’t end there. Once you don your lanyard and pass through a second set of locked doors, you enter the school’s main hallway, while security cameras continue to feed live video back into the front office.

It all comes at a cost. Donegan’s school district — with the help of security consultant Paul Timm of RETA Security — has spent more than $175,000 on the system in the last two years. For a district of only three schools and 1100 students, that is a lot of money, but it is all worth it, she said.

“I don’t know that there’s too big a pricetag to put on kids being as safe as they can be,” Donegan said.

“So often we hear we can’t afford it, but what we can’t afford is another terrible incident,” Timm said.

Classroom doors open inward — not outward — and lock from the inside, providing teachers and students security if an intruder is in the hallway. Some employees carry digital two-way radios, enabling them to communicate at all times with the push of a button. Administrators such as Donegan are able to watch the school’s security video on their mobile devices. Barricades line the edge of the school’s parking lot, keeping cars from pulling up close to the entrance.

Teachers say all the security makes them feel safe inside the school.

“I think the most important thing is just keeping the kids safe,” fourth-grade teacher Dara Sacher said.

Parents like Charlene Abraham, whose son Matthew attends Middleton, say they feel better about dropping off their kids knowing the school has such substantial security measures in place.

“We’re sending our kids to school to learn, not to worry about whether they’re going to come home or not,” she said.

In the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook last Friday, Donegan’s district is now even looking into installing bullet-resistant glass for the school building. While Middleton’s security measures continue to put administrators, teachers, parents and students at ease, Sacher said she thinks that more extreme measures — such as arming teachers, an idea pushed by Oregon state Rep. Dennis Richardson — are a step too far.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable being armed,” Sacher said. “Even if you trained people, I think it’d be better to keep the guns out of school rather than arm teachers.”

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Park wins South Korea presidency, to be first woman leader

SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler won South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday and will become the country's first female leader, saying she would work to heal a divided society.

The 60-year old conservative, Park Geun-hye, will return to the presidential palace in Seoul where she served as her father's first lady in the 1970s, after her mother was assassinated by a North Korean-backed gunman.

With more than 88 percent of the votes counted, Park led with 51.6 percent to 48 percent for her left-wing challenger, human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, giving her an unassailable lead that forced Moon to concede.

Her raucous, jubilant supporters braved sub-zero temperatures to chant her name and wave South Korean flags outside her house. When she reached her party headquarters, Park was greeted with shouts of "president".

An elated Park reached into the crowd to grasp hands of supporters wearing red scarves, her party's color.

"This is a victory brought by the people's hope for overcoming crisis and for economic recovery," she told supporters at a rally in central Seoul.

Park will take office for a mandatory single, five-year term in February and will face an immediate challenge from a hostile North Korea and have to deal with an economy in which annual growth rates have fallen to about 2 percent from an average of 5.5 percent in its decades of hyper-charged growth.

She is unmarried and has no children, saying that her life will be devoted to her country.

The legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, who ruled for 18 years and transformed the country from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrial power-house, still divides Koreans.

For many conservatives, he is South Korea's greatest president and the election of his daughter would vindicate his rule. His opponents dub him a "dictator" who trampled on human rights and stifled dissent.

"I trust her. She will save our country," said Park Hye-sook, 67, who voted in an affluent Seoul district, earlier in the day.

"Her father ... rescued the country," said the housewife and grandmother, who is no relation to the candidate.

For younger people, the main concern is the economy and the creation of well-paid jobs in a country where income inequalities have grown in recent years.

"Now a McDonald's hamburger is over 5,000 Korean won ($4.66) so you can't buy a McDonald's burger with your hourly pay. Life is hard already for our two-member family but if there were kids, it would be much tougher," said Cho Hae-ran, 41, who is married and works at a trading company.

Park has spent 15 years in politics as a leading legislator in the ruling Saenuri party, although her policies are sketchy.

She has a "Happiness Promotion Committee" and her campaign was launched as a "National Happiness Campaign", a slogan she has since changed to "A Prepared Woman President".

She has cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a tough proponent of free markets, as her role model as well as Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor who is Europe's most powerful leader.

NEGOTIATE WITH NORTH

One of those who voted on Wednesday was Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector from North Korea who is the only person known to have escaped from a slave labor camp there.

He Tweeted that he was voting "for the first time in my life", although he didn't say for whom.

Park has said she would negotiate with Kim Jong-un, the youthful leader of North Korea who recently celebrated a year in office, but wants the South's isolated and impoverished neighbor to give up its nuclear weapons program as a precondition for aid, something Pyongyang has refused to do.

The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice ended their conflict. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the North's current leader, ordered several assassination attempts on Park's father, one of which resulted in her mother being shot to death in 1974.

Park herself met Kim Jong-un's father, the late leader Kim Jong-il, and declared he was "comfortable to talk to" and he seemed to be someone "who would keep his word".

The North successfully launched a long-range rocket last week in what critics said was a test of technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile and has recently stepped up its attacks on Park, describing her as holding a "grudge" and seeking "confrontation", code for war.

Park remains a firm supporter of a trade pact with the United States that and looks set to continue the free-market policies of her predecessor, although she has said she would seek to spread wealth more evenly.

The biggest of all the chaebol, Samsung Group, which produces the world's top selling smartphone as well as televisions, computer chips and ships, has sales equivalent to about a fifth of South Korea's national output.

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park, Seongbin Kang, Narae Kim, SoMang Yang; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Coal use set to surpass oil in a decade: IEA

PARIS: Coal is set to surpass oil as the world's top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published Tuesday.

"Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand during the first decade of the 21st century," said Maria van der Hoeven, head of the International Energy Agency.

Economic growth is expected to push up further coal's share of the global energy mix, "and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade," she said in a statement.

The latest IEA projections see coal consumption nearly catching oil consumption in four years time, rising to 4.32 billion tonnes of oil equivalent in 2017 against 4.4 billion tonnes for oil.

That has consequences for climate change as coal produces far more carbon emissions responsible for global warming than other fuels.

But the IEA report on coal found that even countries which have committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions are finding it difficult to resist the renewed allure of coal.

A number of European countries have seen their use of coal for electricity consumption jump at the beginning of this year, including by 65 per cent in Spain, 35 per cent in Britain and 8 per cent in Germany.

The shale gas boom in the United States has led to a slump in coal prices there and subsequently on the market in Europe, where natural gas remains expensive.

This gave a price advantage to coal beginning last year, with the low price of polluting in Europe's emission trading scheme also a contributing factor.

"Low coal prices, supported by a low (emissions) price resulted in a significant gas-to-coal switch in Europe," said the report.

European countries have been slow to exploit shale gas deposits, concerned about possible environmental damage, but the IEA pointed out that the US experience shows that tapping it can bring benefits from lower coal use as well as lower electricity costs.

"Europe, China and other regions should take note," said van der Hoeven.

Moreover, the IEA report doesn't foresee within the next five years the widespread take-up of technology to capture and store underground carbon emissions from burning coal.

Van der Hoeven warned that "coal faces the risk of a potential climate policy backlash" unless there is technological progress or a replication of the US experience.

The IEA, the energy advisory arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development of 34 industrialised nations, sees non-OECD developing countries as driving the increase in coal consumption due to population growth and rising electricity consumption as their economies grow and modernise.

In its baseline scenario, the IEA sees rapid increases in power generation making India the second-largest coal consumer in 2017, displacing the United States where the shale gas boom makes coal uncompetitive.

Chinese coal consumption is forecast to account for more than half of global demand by 2014, with the country also displacing the United States as the biggest coal polluter on a per-capita basis.

The IEA sees China's coal demand increasing by an average of 3.7 per cent per year to 3,190 million tonnes of coal equivalent in 2017.

Even in the case of a slowdown in the breakneck growth in the Chinese economy the IEA sees the country's use of coal growing by 2 per cent per year, as well as the overall coal market growing.

The agency said that given its position developments in the Chinese market would largely determine the course of the global coal market, saying: "China is coal. Coal is China."

The IEA believes that current mining and port expansion projects are sufficient to meet China's rising needs, but expressed concern if the current low prices and uncertainties about the economic outlook make investors overly cautious.

Cancellations or a slowdown in "development projects might lead to tightened international coal markets" in the next five years, the IEA warned.

The report sees only the United States making reductions on coal-based carbon emissions on per capita and per economic output measures thanks to cheap gas displacing coal.

Increased coal use pushes up China's emissions on a per capita basis, displacing the United States as the top polluter.

However. China is also seen as making the most gains in emissions efficiency, followed by the United States.

Neither the Europe nor India are forecast to make considerable gains in emissions efficiency.

- AFP/fa

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TN minister's brother O Raja, others get anticipatory bail

MADURAI: O Raja, brother of Tamil Nadu minister O Panneerselvam, and four others, charged with abetment of suicide of a Dalit youth, were today granted conditional bail by the Madras high court.

Police had filed cases against them under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) and Cr.PC 174 following a "suicide note" recovered from the spot.

21-year-old Nagamuthu of Kailapatty area in the district had in the note alleged that Raja and others were "responsible" for his suicide.

Granting conditional bail to them, Justice C T Selvam od Madurai bench asked Raja and another accused Pandi to appear before the Thenkarai police station on Saturdays and Sundays.

Three other accused Sivakumar, Logu and Saravanan had been asked to appear before the Inspector of Thenkarai police station daily.

In the suicident note, Nagamuthu had alleged that Raja had "sidelined" him from renovation work of Kailasanathar temple at Kailasapatti and also threatened to have him branded as a thief if he got involved further in the work.

Cases had already been registered against the petitioners, except Raja, who were with the Protection Committee of the temple, for allegedly abusing Nagamuthu by caste name. He was earlier called to police station in connection with a theft case inquiry.

The petitioners denied that they instigated Nagamuthu to commit suicide.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

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Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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Assault Weapons Ban: What Was It and Did It Work?

Editor's Note: This post is part of a larger series by ABC News examining the complex legal, political and social issues in the gun control debate. The series is part of ABC's special coverage of the search for solutions in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

When the 113th Congress is sworn in in January, expect the debate over gun control to have renewed urgency. Several prominent lawmakers have already come forth to call for a re-examination and re-working of our nation's gun laws in the wake of Friday's mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

While new legislation likely won't be introduced until after Jan. 3, statements from top Senators such as Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) suggest that new proposals could be similar to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was in in place from 1994 to 2004.

"I can tell you that he is going to have a bill to lead on because as a first-day bill I'm going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House -- a bill to ban assault weapons," Feinstein said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

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"High-capacity magazines -- devices that dramatically boost a weapon's firing power -- were prohibited from 1994 until 2004, when the federal assault weapons ban was in place... It's time to end the bloodshed and restore common sense to our gun laws -- beginning with a permanent ban on high-capacity gun magazines," Lautenberg wrote in an op-ed on the Huffington Post that he penned with Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed in the Long Island Railroad shooting of 1993.

What Did the Assault Weapons Ban Do?

Passed by Congress on Sept. 13, 1994, and signed by Bill Clinton later that day, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban prohibited the manufacturing of 18 specific models of semiautomatic weapons, along with the manufacturing of high-capacity ammunition magazines that could carry more than 10 rounds. The ban had a provision that allowed it to expire in September 2004.

Several attempts were made in Congress to re-up the ban, the most recent in June 2008, according to the Library of Congress, but none of them have been successful. Republicans generally opposed it; high-profile Democrats typically shied away from the issue.

In the second presidential debate of the 2012 campaign, President Obama said he was interested in re-instituting the ban.

"Weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don't belong on our streets. And so what I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally," the president said. "Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced."

Could a Ban Have Prevented the Connecticut Shootings?

It's impossible to say for sure, but it seems unlikely that if the law were still in place, as it was written, it could have done much to prevent Friday's tragedy. Lanza's primary weapon, the Bushmaster .223 rifle, is a type of AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, certain models of which were prohibited from being sold under the ban, but the Bushmaster model used by Lanza was not on that list.

Additionally, the language in the law was loose enough that a gun enthusiast who was interested in adding a type of AR-15 to their collection could have purchased one legally.

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Egyptian prosecutor's resignation angers Brotherhood

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor resigned under pressure from his opponents in the judiciary, dealing a blow to President Mohamed Mursi and drawing an angry response on Tuesday from the Islamist leader's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Seeking to keep pressure on Mursi, the main opposition coalition staged protests against an Islamist-backed draft constitution that has divided Egypt but which looks set to be approved in the second round of a referendum on Saturday.

A few hundred protesters made their way through the streets of Cairo chanting "Revolution, revolution, for the sake of the constitution" and calling on Mursi to "Leave, leave, you coward".

But as the protest got under way, the numbers were well down on previous demonstrations.

Mursi obtained a 57 percent "yes" vote for the constitution in a first round of the referendum last weekend, state media said, less than he had hoped for.

The opposition, which says the law is too Islamist, will be emboldened by the result but is unlikely to win the second round, to be held in districts seen as even more sympathetic towards Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.

Protesters broke into cheers when the public prosecutor appointed by Mursi last month announced his resignation late on Monday.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power in elections in June, said the enforced resignation of public prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim was a "crime".

The Supreme Judiciary Council, which governs the country's judicial system, should refuse to accept the prosecutor's resignation, the Brotherhood said.

Further signs of opposition to Mursi emerged when a judges' club urged its members not to supervise Saturday's vote. But the call is not binding and balloting is expected to go ahead.

If the constitution passes next weekend, national elections can take place early next year, something many hope will help end the turmoil that has gripped Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.

The National Salvation Front opposition coalition said there were widespread voting violations in the first round and called for protests to "bring down the invalid draft constitution".

The Ministry of Justice said it was appointing a group of judges to investigate complaints of voting irregularities around the country.

DEMONSTRATIONS

Opposition marchers headed for Tahrir Square, cradle of the revolution that toppled Mubarak, and Mursi's presidential palace, still ringed with tanks after earlier protests.

A protester at the presidential palace, Mohamed Adel, 30, said: "I have been camping here for weeks and will continue to do so until the constitution that divided the nation, and for which people died, gets scrapped."

The build-up to the first round of voting saw clashes between supporters and opponents of Mursi in which eight people died. Recent demonstrations in Cairo have been more peaceful, although rival factions clashed on Friday in Alexandria, Egypt's second biggest city.

On Monday evening, more than 1,300 members of the General Prosecution staff gathered outside the public prosecutor's office, demanding Ibrahim leave his post.

Hours later, Ibrahim announced he had resigned. The crowd cheered "God is Great! Long live justice!" and "Long live the independence of the judiciary!" witnesses said.

The closeness of the first-round referendum vote and low turnout give Mursi scant comfort as he seeks to assemble support for difficult economic reforms.

OPPOSITION BOOST

"This percentage ... will strengthen the hand of the National Salvation Front and the leaders of this Front have declared they are going to continue this fight to discredit the constitution," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

Mursi is likely to become more unpopular with the introduction of planned austerity measures, polarizing society further, Sayyid told Reuters.

To tackle the budget deficit, the government needs to impose tax rises and cut back fuel subsidies. Uncertainty surrounding economic reform plans has already forced the postponement of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The Egyptian pound has fallen to eight-year lows against the dollar.

Mursi and his backers say the constitution is needed to move Egypt's democratic transition forward. Opponents say the document is too Islamist and ignores the rights of women and of minorities, including Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.

Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself extra powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies and boycotted by many liberals.

The referendum has had to be held over two days because many of the judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott in protest. In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those voting.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Football: Bin Hammam resigns from FIFA, AFC

PARIS: Mohamed Bin Hammam on Monday announced that he had resigned from his roles on FIFA's executive committee and as president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

The Qatari told AFP in an emailed statement that he had stepped down from the positions 10 days after the ethics committee of football's world governing body FIFA, launched a new probe into corruption claims against him.

FIFA responded to bin Hammam's statement by saying it had received his resignation letter but stressed its ethics committee remained competent to make and maintain a judgement "even if a person resigns".

On that basis, FIFA noted its own report showed "repeated violations of Article 19 (Conflict of Interest) of the FIFA Code of Ethics, edition 2012, of Mohamed Bin Hammam during his terms as AFC President and as member of the FIFA Executive Committee in the years 2008 to 2011, which justified a life-long ban from all football related activity."

The 63-year-old has been accused of trying to buy the result of a vote to the world governing body's top job in 2011 and was banned by FIFA from all footballing activities.

This ban was subsequently overturned by the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in July due to what it called a lack of evidence over the corruption allegations.

Bin Hammam, who is still provisionally suspended from football, said he was fed up with what he said were "trumped up allegations".

"For me, the decision by CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport), the highest independent authority in sports arbitration, that FIFA's ban was unjustified is enough," he said in the statement.

"This decision has been now confirmed by a new Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee who failed to introduce any evidence in spite of spending tens of millions of dollars for an investigation.

"I do not want to spend any more of my life fighting trumped up allegations and to focus instead on my family and businesses. However, if further allegations are made I will, of course, defend myself in the same way that I did in the past."

Last month, the AFC said it was looking to replace bin Hammam following a unanimous decision to hold presidential elections next year.

According to insiders, interim president Zhang Jilong of China is favourite to claim the post full-time and last month said he had "promised a new vision for AFC" in a "new era of transparency" after nine years of bin Hammam being at the helm.

- AFP/fa

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Exit polls: Narendra Modi to sweep Gujarat, Congress ahead in Himachal

NEW DELHI: Exit and opinion polls on television channels at the end of voting in Gujarat on Sunday projected BJP to perform a hat-trick in the state while Congress is predicted to have an edge in BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh.

Exit poll carried out by C-Voter for Times Now predicted 119 to 129 seats for BJP while Congress is projected to win between 49 and 59 seats out of the total 182 seats.

News 24 showed that BJP is likely to get 140 against 117 seats it had won in 2007 assembly polls as the party is expected to get 46 per cent of the total vote share. The poll carried out by Chanakya for the channel projected Congress to get 40 seats, 19 short of 59 it won in 2007 polls.

Headlines Today projected BJP to get between 118 and 128 seats while Congress is likely to win in 50 to 56 seats with 37 per cent vote share.

The ABP News predicted BJP to win in 116 seats and Congress in 60 constituencies.

C-Voter predicted a vote share of 46 per cent for BJP against 37 per cent for Congress while Chanakya said BJP is likely to get 50 per cent vote share against 35 per cent of Congress.

In Himachal Pradesh, C-Voter predicted 30 to 38 seats for Congress while BJP is likely to get 27 to 35 seats in the 68-member assembly.

Chanakya predicted Congress to win in 40 seats while they said BJP is likely to win in 23 seats. Others may win in five seats.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

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Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

Read More..